Holi!

Gulal

Holi is a delightful Indian festival that quickly became my favorite as of today. It celebrates colors, and, as all Indian holidays I know about, commemorates a deity vanquishing a demon, and, ipso facto, good triumphing over evil. It also celebrates the spring, the beginning of the harvest and is now mostly a cultural, rather than religious, celebration. The holiday is observed by throwing colored powder, called gulal, on everyone around you, as well has having water fights and generally running around. Yesterday (the day before Holi), Hannah and I went to a clothes market and then came home before meeting up with friends for dinner. Every time we were on the street, kids on balconies above us would pelt us with water balloons. They usually missed, but one time they got us good, and we spent an auto ride drying ourselves and licking our wounds. People tend to get CRAZY for Holi, and foreigners are especially targeted, which is why we decided to just stay in our neighborhood rather than try and find the biggest festival site or something. 

Waiting with water balloons on the balconies...

Dhol player at the party

Several days before the actual festival, our landlord, Manish, who has been wonderful to us throughout the year, invited us to a Holi party at a neighbor's house. He said that a news show had contacted him about filming people playing Holi (throwing the gulal) before the actual day, so they could air footage on Holi. We showed up in clothing we knew would get ruined, and arrived to fine about twenty people, not one of whom we had ever seen before, standing around listening to a drummer playing a dhol (like a two-sided Indian bongo drum). It was awkward, especially when they kept goading us to dance (by ourselves, in front of everyone) like hired entertainers. But the people were very nice and it was a good introduction for the real thing. To see the whole clip of the news segment, click here.

This morning, the day of Holi, we arose to the sounds of chairs being set up in the park and water balloons bursting. At around 10:30, we geared up in white clothes, moisturized our faces and oiled our hair (to prevent the color from staining too badly) and headed upstairs to play Holi on the roof with Manish, his wife and their two young girls, who are the CUTEST, most fun kids, and we've become attached to the whole family. Reena, the mom, was standing with a hose continuously filling buckets with pink dye to color the water, while the girls threw gulal and sprayed us constantly with waterguns that looked like giant injections. It was SO fun, so light hearted, just warm enough for the water to be refreshing. After a while, Sean and his girlfriend joined us, bringing way more gulal and giant water guns that they had spent way too much money on, considering that they leaked like crazy and had zero water pressure.

The girls play in a colorful puddle

Sean gets attacked!

With the whole family

It was an awesome experience, and after two full hours of madness, Reena gave us a snack and we collapsed into plastic chairs, thirsty, sunburned and exhausted, covered in color and content as could be. If any of you ever have a chance to play Holi, DO IT!

The three ETAs left in Delhi! We did it!

If only the Jews could have a holiday that involved lightheartedly attacking your relatives...

...just kidding. That would be the end of the Jews.

To see all of my photos from today, click here.

I am headed to Thailand on Friday the 29th for two weeks of bliss with Hannah, Sean and half the India ETAs. I'll try to post at least once while I'm there, but if not, see ya on the flipside! Love from Mother India.

Milk Migration

In India, the ways that people have been doing things for hundreds, if not thousands, of years are performed alongside some of the most ubiquitous modern technology. Many of the things I see every day are so basic and obvious, I wonder why we don't do it this way in the US. So many aspects of daily life involve community; it's no wonder people feel so comfortable giving unsolicited advice and being in "your' personal space all the time. 

On Friday afternoons, my roommates and I, tired from the week's work, usually take it easy and stay at home. Saturdays are the days we explore this crazy megacity, see movies and go out to dinner before we go out at night. Sunday is our day for recovery, and we usually spend it at home, catching up on emails, cooking for the week, doing laundry. This past Sunday afternoon, I headed down the street to the Mother Dairy down the block, and the corner store next to it to get bread and milk and other stuff for the week. Mother Dairy is a national distributor of milk and dairy products, serving as the middleman between farmer-owned dairy cooperatives and individual consumers. Every day from 10AM to 1:30PM, and again from 4PM to 10 PM, the shutter of the little stall is lifted and the disgruntled but generous man who operates the store awaits the customers from across the black granite counter. He always seems grumpy but acts glad to see me, patient with my flailing Hindi and with the children who can't decide which ice cream to get. Next to the counter are two machines that look like those automatic coffee vending machines, but instead of a small niche for a flimsy plastic cup to drop down from, there is a huge space between the spout and the drain. 

"Three Cows" by Subodh Gupta,  National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi

On Sunday afternoons, people come from all over the neighborhood, mostly children with a few aunties thrown in the mix, bearing tall, empty, aluminum canisters. The children come holding the weightless cylinders by the long, wire handles, banging them lightly against their legs as they walk. They wait in line, pay the Mother Dairy, and fill their containers to the top at the milk dispensers before heading back home, weighed down by their loads. Like bees leaving the hive to get pollen for the queen, the kids head out when the shadows are long, pockets full of change for the milk and sometimes a cold treat, fetching milk for their mothers and grandmothers who await them at home. It's such a simple act: buying milk. There's nothing fancy or exciting about going to the Mother Dairy with an empty can, filling it at the machine and going home. It's not that you can't buy milk without your own container--milk also comes in boxes and plastic bags. Yet the way that it happens in this way is so communal. Plastic and cardboard aren't wasted on packaging. Kids see their friends and neighbors before the hectic week begins. The grumpy man who works at Mother Dairy spares some milk for the families that live in makeshift slums by the side of the road and the unbathed children who hold out their empty hands to him. The fruit wallah and vegetable wallah play cards in the park next to the dairy,  jumping up and making their way to their carts when they see a potential customer approach their carts.

The Mother Dairy is literally around the corner from our house, but I get to see all this meeting and interaction the second I step out my door. The building on the corner is under construction, and that in itself is a sight to behold. The construction crew consists of both men and women, with men doing most of the hand work and women doing most of the carrying and transporting of materials. They are always wearing saris, usually chiffon and always very colorful, with the pallu made long so as to cover their heads with it. They place a small terry cloth ring on their heads, on top of which they balance up to eight red bricks without anything to help them hold it or balance. Sometimes they have big baskets that they fill with dirt or concrete powder to bring it wherever it's needed. On Krishna's birthday they decorated the inside of the unfinished building with colorful banners and marigolds. I wonder where these workers live, how it can be socially acceptable here for women to do such physical labor, when there are so many other restrictions on what they may and may not do. I think about how difficult it is for me to walk in a sari, tripping every few feet, and often holding it up to allow me to move, and how gracefully these women schlep bricks on their heads and lay mortar for the walls. 

The stray dogs in the neighborhood are familiar to me now; like the seniors who congregate daily in the park across the street, the dogs often congregate to laze in the shade under cars, bark at birds and sniff the trash. At night they sleep on top of cars, roused rudely from their slumber in the morning by commuters and cleaners. Men pass by on bicycles at all hours of the day, a bag hanging from their handlebars, soliciting recyclable cardboard and newspapers which they sell by the kilo to collection centers. 

Sunday afternoons are relaxed here, but so much happens all the time in this neighborhood, in this megacity, that I feel like I'm the only one for whom these afternoons are lazy.

On Thursday we leave for three days in Varanasi and then a week in Kolkata to celebrate the major festival of Durga Puja. In other words, it may be a few weeks until I write again. Until then, enjoy the rest of what the internet has to offer! 

Sending much love from Mother India, xoxox

In which it rains and we explore our neighborhood...

I woke up from a nap the other day to two text messages.  One was from Sean, my fellow ETA, which said: "monsoon!   rain check?"  The other was from a college friend named Sim who is from here originally and moved back after graduation.  It read: "The first rain is the best thing about the monsoon."  I thanked my lucky stars as I looked out the window and saw the streams of water falling from the sky, as I realized that this tremendous heat was on its way out.  I walked outside in my schmancy new rain jacket that I spent too much money on at Paragon; at this point the rain had abated from a downpour to a heavy drizzle.  A giant puddle had formed in front of the apartment building and a boy of about 5 or 6 was timidly walking through it when his father motioned for him to jump.  He splashed with delight, echoing the happy cries of the kids that filled the playground across the street, outside not in spite but because of this overdue first rain of the season.  The fact that it came just after we had finished our (hopefully) final major bureaucratic ordeal, spending four hours in the Foreign Residents' Registration Office (FRRO), made it all the sweeter.
Leaving the house with Tangi to go to our first Hindi class was amazing--for the first time since we arrived, we weren't choking on the heat, or sweating before we got to the end of the block!  The air was fresh and fragrant and the breeze felt cool on our skin.  Despite being one of the largest cities in the world and being located in the heart of a subcontinent consumed by a monsoon for several months every year, Delhi lacks a sufficient drainage system, and the ground that had been dust yesterday was now soft and muddy.  Large puddles had formed every few feet, making the road an obstacle course not just for trying to avoid the puddles, but for trying not to be near a puddle when a car, motorcycle, scooter, auto, stray dog or any other moving anything while it went through the puddle.
The Hindi class was awesome, though it is a difficult language to learn, especially because there are so many sounds that are guttural or otherwise difficult for English speakers to pronounce.  We spent two  and a half hours learning grammar and an hour and a half practicing reading and writing the script, and I never knew four hours could go by so quickly!  So far I have learned how to count to 10, apologize, say go away, say don't touch me, say my name and where I am from, and of course the essential: menduk neh mera dil tordiya, which means, "a frog broke my heart."  (seriously.  Long story.  It took me forever to remember that phrase.  Time wisely spent!)

After resting for a bit at home after class, Hannah and I took a walk to explore our neighborhood, now that we finally know how exactly to get back to our house and don't get hopelessly lost every single time we go home!  We walked through the narrow streets towards the market, keeping our eyes out for Nice Tailors, the recommended seamster, and a wine and beer store, as they are called here.  Taking our time and strolling without a clear agenda, we reached the main street of Malviya Nagar.  When we turned just off the main road, we found ourselves in the heart of a pedestrian market we hadn't known existed.  There were vegetable wallas with produce much fresher and prettier than we had seen on carts around the neighborhood.  There was a whole row of stalls selling only dupatas, the light scarves Indian women wear flowing down their backs.  Another row held stall after stall of tailors, with men diligently stitching perfect, straight lines using shiny black foot pedal sewing machines that are sold in the States merely as decor.  Several shops had only trimmings-- ribbons and buttons and patches with embroidery in turquiose, gold and magenta. Piles of fabric in a million stacks, each with a distinct pattern and ready to be made into saris and suits.  After walking for a bit, I bought dumplings from a guy selling them from round, steaming tin containers called tiffins; a dozen for 30 rupees (about 50 cents).  As our neighborhood is not touristy at all, we saw no other foreigners during our three hour walk, except for, ironically, two Mormon missionaries.  We left the market and walked to the main road in search of sharab (alcohol) a scandalous endeavor for women in India.

After asking some men selling PVC pipe about its whereabouts, we found the walla, bought some beers and tried to get home via the route we take to the metro, not our usual way home.  Hannah was "sure" we were going the right way, but after about 15 minutes, when I did not recognize any landmarks, she asked for directions to Malviya Nagar N-Block.  "Malviya Nagar?" I heard them say.  We had walked into a completely different neighborhood.  Tired at this point and ready to be done walking after three hours, we tried to flag down an auto, of which there were few, laughing so hard at having walked to a completely different place.  I had forgotten my water bottle and already finished Hannah's water, so I went into a corner store to get water, only to find that what they sold were two liter bottles.  Armed with my new, infant-sized water bottle, Hannah and I finally found an auto to take us home, and we rested our dusty feet as we passed a group of men butchering live chickens, a mosque, a cluster of bicycle rickshaws, and plenty of people taking a snooze in the shade of their awnings.  Something tells me that Mr. Rogers wasn't talking about Malviya Nagar when he sang about the people in your neighborhood.

HEAT

I can truly say that there is nothing that could have prepared me for this heat. The air feels (and sometimes smells) like you are walking on the ventilation grates over the subway in New York in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer. Nothing can cool you down outside. Even the wind blows hot air in your face and does little to cool the ample sweat pouring from every pore in your body. Though the humidity is not as bad as I thought it would be, standing outside for even five minutes, whether in the sun or the shade, makes you desperate to get out of the heat. Walking even a few blocks leaves you exhausted and thirsty as hell; it gives you a serious appreciation for the street sweepers, outdoor vendors, rickshaw drivers, security guards and everyone else who makes their living outside, let alone the countless women, men and children who live on the street. The monsoon season will thankfully begin in a few weeks, before which I will have to relegate myself to being a hot, sweaty mess every time I set foot outside.


The past week has entailed meeting after meeting, a time consuming orientation that involved lots of practical training in teaching English, briefings on Indian education, and plenty of advice on how to not get assaulted/robbed/taken advantage of/into any trouble. By the weekend we were so eager to be done with being talked at and desperate to begin getting set up in the city, that we had completely forgotten the fact that two thirds of the group would be heading elsewhere in India. We suddenly found ourselves saying goodbye to people we had just met and become attached to in this foreign world.


The good news is that the four of us girls left in Delhi have chosen a very nice place to live, in a neighborhood called Malviya Nagar in South Delhi. The two boys will be living in a two bedroom, as one of them is a Mormon and isn't about to share a residence with females. The girls I live with are lovely: Hannah went to NYU and is from a suburb of Atlanta, Patricia is from Bellingham, Washington and went to Whitman, and Tangiah is from South Orange, New Jersey and just graduated from Spelman. I am sharing a room with Patricia, which is fine, as I had such a positive experience sharing a room last year and in general don't need much alone time. Our sharing a room allowed all four of us to pay significantly less rent (about $250/month) and to live in a very well-maintained apartment that ETAs have lived in for the past three years, when the English teaching fellowship began in India. It is fully furnished, with dishes and cooking utensils, a microwave, a purifier to make tap water safe to drink, and even a small library of books left behind by former fellows. Hannah commented that it feels like there were guardian angels that were looking out for us before we came! My sheets feel like sandpaper and I still haven't figured out which switch is for which light/fan/water motor/water heater/outlet/panic button, but there is air conditioning(!) and clean, hot showers and a lovely home in a lovely neighborhood.

One problem I have encountered in Delhi is that apart from the major roads, none of the streets really have names. Home addresses are according to blocks, as in our house, which is number 11, N-Block, Malviya Nagar. As a result, people, including cab drivers and the auto wallas have absolutely no way of knowing the ins and outs of every single neighborhood in Delhi. I should also explain that auto wallas are the guys who drive auto rickshaws, also called indian helicopters, which are the ubiquitous green and yellow three wheeled scooters with a bench in the back and a canopy. To ride in an auto is to entrust the walla with your life, in as literal a sense as possible. In any case, getting home in an auto requires you to know very specifically how to get home. Because we are so new here and had been driven to our home exclusively by drivers hired by the program center, we had a vague idea of where we live but not a specific knowledge of how to get there. As we made our way home in an auto from a big market in a neighborhood called Lajpat Nagar, we ended up driving in circles through the neighborhood, the driver stopping every 30 feet to ask for directions to get to N-block. I'm pretty sure Indians are like Argentines in that if they don't know exactly where you want to get to, they will make up directions rather than admit the defeat of not knowing. After nearly an hour of driving around, the driver announced that there was a "mechanical problem" with his auto and he could not drive us anymore. I will never know whether he just said that to get us out of his hair or whether he did end up stranded with auto trouble in the bowels of Malviya Nagar, but either way, we were out 90 rupees and walking on foot. I would swear sometimes that some guardian angel is looking out for me here, because I honestly can't say how we found out way home within minutes, or how the four of us managed through the dark at the end of a long day and avoided getting hit by one of the many maniac drivers in this country. Arriving home, sweaty, dusty and exhausted, the only thing I could feel was gratitude for successfully surviving this city one more day, and for the glorious air conditioning that flooded my skin with relief when we finally got home.